The religion of meaning well

None of these Rosary memberships binds under the pain of sin. It is not even a venial sin to fail in this duty because such an undertaking is entirely voluntary and supererogatory. Needless to say, people should not join the Confraternity if they do not intend to fulfill their obligation by saying the Rosary as often as is required, without, however, neglecting the duties of their state in life…

And, my dear Catholic people, even if you fail to say your Rosary out of sheer carelessness or laziness, as long as you do not have any formal contempt for it, you do not sin, absolutely speaking…

–from The Secret of the Rosary by St. Louis De Montfort

Dear brothers, let us not fail to warn those in the Roman Catholic church to flee from it with its errors and heresies.

If you ever go to Mackinac Island…

Mackinac Island is a beautiful little island, 3.8 square miles in area, located in Lake Huron between the main part of Michigan and the U.P. It’s known for its handmade fudge and how there are (mostly) no cars on the island. Most of the island is a state park. My family went when I was a boy, and Mary Ann and I went before we had kids; we’d like to go up again with the kids sometime. It’s a beautiful place.

This is the sanctification of your studies, when they are devoted to God

Mary Ann and I are working on transcribing the Thomas Rutherford abridgement of Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor, which leaves in many of the footnotes and tangentials that the standard William Brown abridgement removes.

While speaking to the problem of unregenerate pastors, Baxter goes into this wonderful aside about education and how if it’s separated from knowing God it’s folly, not wisdom:

O that all our students in the university would well consider this! What a poor business it is to themselves to spend their time in knowing some little of the works of God, and some of those names that the divided tongues of the nations have imposed on them, and not to know the Lord himself, exalt him in their hearts, nor to be acquainted with that one renewing work that should make them happy. They do but walk in a vain show, and spend their lives like dreaming men, while they busy their wits and tongues about abundance of names and notions, and are strangers to God and the life of saints. If ever God awaken them by his grace, they will have cogitations and employments so much more serious than their unsanctified studies and disputations were, that they will confess they did but dream before. A world of business they make themselves about nothing, while they are wilful strangers to the primitive, independent, necessary Being, who is all in all. Nothing can be rightly known, if God be not known; nor is any study well managed, nor to any great purpose, where God is not studied…

Why personhood, part 2: a legal basis for protecting the innocent

In part 1, our purpose was to establish that a judge must protect the innocent, and that for a judge to consign an innocent unborn baby, having committed no crime, to death, is wickedness.

When a judge renders a decision, though, he is expected to give his legal reasoning as to how he came to that decision.

What legal reasoning might a God-fearing judge use when rendering a decision to protect an innocent unborn child from death, particularly when the relevant laws seem to leave him without options?

Why personhood, part 1: the judge’s duty

Scenario: You’re a God-fearing judge. A young woman is brought before you. She is pregnant and she wants to kill her unborn baby. Under the laws of your state she must have written parental consent. Her parents have refused consent, but the law provides for a judicial bypass in this case. The lower court granted the bypass, but the state appealed, saying procedures weren’t followed as specified by law. So now here she is. You’ve had cases like this before, and you’ve always been able to find some procedural irregularity and protect the baby. But this time, all the paperwork is in order.

What is your duty?

Has the baby committed a crime worthy of death?

Seeing fatherhood everywhere

We need to have our eyes opened—we need to be able to see. We need to see where we are still trying to cast off the restraint. We need to see where in our lives we are trying to remove creaturehood from us, to displace God as God—to do what our first parents did at the beginning—and then we need to exercise faith in the work of Jesus Christ. Do you think we can have saving faith and make claim to the righteousness of Christ while having no manifest obedience demonstrated by us to our place, our domain, our abode as God has placed us—as men, as women, as husbands, as wives, as servants, as masters, as children, as parents?

The 2012 ClearNote Summer Conference was titled I Believe in God the Father Almighty. Here is the closing sermon of the conference, titled Seeing Fatherhood Everywhere, preached July 7, 2012 by David Max Curell.

(This is sermon 4 in a series; see also sermon 1, sermon 2, and sermon 3.)

It’s the parents’ responsibility before God

Dear (Senators Steele, Eckerty, Head, Zakas, Hume, Delph, Glick, Young, Randolph, and Broden),

My wife and I are residents of Indiana, and we are concerned about SB171, the grandparent visitation bill. Parents are entrusted by God with the responsibility to direct their children’s upbringing, including who to associate with, and this bill would open up every family to being overruled by a judge who thinks differently than they do. This is not right. Please do not support SB171.

Thank you,
Daniel & Mary Ann Meyer
Indianapolis